Cinemagraph Pro: The Easy Cinemagraph Tool

As you can see above, I just rendered out my first Cinemagraph today! The application Cinemagraph Pro is now on sale for $15…a whopping 92.5% off from the usual $200! I had checked it out a couple of weeks ago, but thought the price was just way too high. For $15, I was definitely interested (maybe that’s just a brilliant marketing strategy? Either way, it worked on me!).

If you aren’t privy to what a cinemagraph is, it’s pretty easy to understand once you actually see one. Basically, it’s just a fancy term for a looping gif that has a static frame with a motion element. There are all sorts of ways to accomplish this unique look, but Cinemagraph Pro makes it really, really easy.

Here’s a look at the interface:

Cinemagraph Pro’s interface does’t have a lot of options, but if you’re just looking for something to do for fun, it’s nice and easy. Load up a movie file (preferably a shot that’s static and has a good motion element that can be isolated for looping), pick your in and out points for looping, then go to the mask area and start paint-brushing around the area you want motion in. It took me all of 2 minutes from booting the application for the first time, to setting up an export.

I was looking for anything to get started, and I found this shot from a couple of years ago of Keene’s Pumpkinfest (for the special ‘Pumpkin Wars’ on HGTV). It was extremely easy to isolate the flag and guy in front of it with the mask tool. For looping I chose ‘bounce’ because his movement patterns were going to look jarring as it jumped from the last frame back to the first frame. But the bounce option allows you to do that age-old video trick of looping something by playing it forward, then in reverse (see: that one awful Tusken Raider shot in Star Wars: A New Hope).

It also has some pretty decent effects built-in.

One thing I would mention is be wary of your export format and size. The first time I did this, I checked off Animated GIF, but left the size at “Full.” One 48MB GIF later, and I had learned my lesson. 1/4 size works perfect for Animated Gifs.

There’s not much more to write about…it’s a pretty straight-forward application, and really fun to use. Go forth and create more GIFs for Tumblr users to endlessly reblog!